I save bottle caps, and dead lighters.
I save half finished cigarettes.
The colorful ends of incense sticks,
empty bottles from that night last week,last month,
last year.
I save every note passed,
out of service phone numbers,
rocks that find me.
I save old playlists.
I save CDs that are too scratched up to play anymore.
I save books found in abandoned buildings,
falling apart at the seams.
I save dead roses from that Valentines Day,
and dead hydrangeas from the following Summer.
I save the sand still stuck in my shoes.
I save Dad’s ring, Mom’s pendant.
One day I will save
Grandma’s gold cross.
I save the happy tears, the sad ones,
the unexplainable ones.
I save all the opportunities I never took,
all the ones I did.
I save his hazel eyes,
her brown ones.
I save the foggy mornings and
the rainy afternoons.
The seemingly endless nights with no place to be, nowhere to go.
I save the time.
I save the lonely car rides under falling leaves.
The silence.
I save the feeling of missing him,
and all the things I never got the chance to say.
I save the longing and the wallowing.
I save the strength that pain demands.
The gratification of a hard days work,
and calluses on hands.
I save the knowledge that I can’t have one
without the other.
~
I save everything I can catch with worn, weary hands,
everything that does not
slip between the
cracks of my
fingers.